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Tuesday, November 11, 2014

Chocolate Chip Buttermilk Cake with Orange Icing & a Giveaway!

Sometimes all you need is a good old-fashioned tea cake with a thick layer of icing on top. This buttermilk cake was made for an afternoon tea, chock-full of chocolate chips and topped with an orange-flavoured butter icing. It was simple but satisfying. The buttermilk cake in this recipe has become one of my go-to recipes for when I want to whip up a cake that's fairly easy. It's an incredibly forgiving recipe, since the buttermilk ensure that the cake stays rich and moist even if you forget about it and leave it in the oven too long like I did.

Interestingly (in a bad way) my icing curdled when I added orange juice to it, and I figure it was because I am super lazy and was whipping my butter when it was still really cold (thanks to my powerful kitchenaid), so I melted another 2 tbsp of butter and whipped it into the mixture, which seemed to fix it up. I'm always a fan of any tips that can stop me from having to throw away wasted ingredients!

On to something very exciting; for the longest time I've been a HUGE fan of the wonderful blog Call Me Cupcake! by Linda Lomelino. She bakes the most beautiful creations and takes stunning photographs, it's the kind of work that I aspire to create. Her pink rainbow cake was one of the first ombré cakes I ever saw, and inspired me to create my favourite cake. So you can imagine my excitement when I heard that an English version of her first book, Lomelino's Cakes : 27 Pretty Cakes to Make Any Day Special was finally being published AND I had the opportunity to share a copy of the book with you. That's right, my very first cookbook giveaway! It's an absolutely gorgeous book, full of the prettiest looking cakes I've seen in a while and plenty of handy tips for making beautiful cakes. P.S. For those of you interested, the book will be on sale in bookstores from November 11th (that's today!).

To enter for a chance to win 1 copy of Lomelino's Cakes : 27 Pretty Cakes to Make Any Day Special by Linda Lomelino: Leave a comment below and tell me, what is your dream birthday cake?This giveaway is currently open to Australian residents only, and closes Monday 17 November 2014. I will select one entry and announce the winner on Tuesday 18 November. Make sure to include your email address in the comment form (you can enter it in the Name/URL box) when you enter so I can contact you if you're the lucky winner! Thanks to Kate from Roost Books for organising this.This giveaway is now closed! Thanks everyone who entered, come back tomorrow to check if you're a winner!

I love Linda Lomelino! My dream (heck, anytime really) birthday cake would have to be your brown butter cake with vanilla bean cream and salted caramel. If there ever was a dream in a cake it's that one!

That book looks divine! My dream cake would be a cheesecake using your pretzel base, a layer of cheesecake and a layer of chocolate cheesecake, covered in fresh raspberries and chocolate flakes. That would be the dream!

My ideal birthday cake would be a half-and-half cake to share with my twin sister so we could both have our favourite birthday cake (without having to compromise on just one flavour)! My half would be a white chocolate mud cake with salted caramel frosting and the other half a dark chocolate mud cake with raspberries and ganache (my sister's favourite). Yum!10emoody@gmail.com

My dream cake would be any that my children make me. They are 3 and 4 years old and they love to eat and love it even more when they get to help me cook and bake. If it tasted like the Cheesecake Factory cheesecake that would be a bonus =) Thanks! jackieyip215@gmail.com

my fav bday cake would be a three tier brown sugar pavlova, filled with a yogurt cream type frosting and topped with raspberries and more cream. cheers .p.s your blog is great and i love your recipes, made many a cake from them.

Being born under the sign of Libra, I simply cannot give you an answer as it would be a toss up between a simple sponge with icing and a sprinkling of jelly crystals which my Mum used to make me or chocolate with a dash of chilli now I am grown up

My dream birthday cake, not really a dream since I made it for myself already but.. a vanilla cake with caramel buttercream studded with honeycomb throughout with a caramel drizzle between each layer, finished with chocolate ganache and more honeycomb! It was inspired by N2's Brokeback moment :o anakin_luke_skywalker@hotmail.com

My dream birthday cake is my sister's birthday cake from nearly 20 years ago now. My mum worked so hard early in the morning before we woke up to make a castle cake with four towers and a Kit-Kat drawbridge. I can still remember how delicious it was. Even now, when I look at photos of that cake I feel happy.

My dream birthday cake would be a combination of silly/novelty and pure deliciousness. My mum doesn't like baking so our birthday cakes growing up were always store-bought or ice cream cakes, and while they were always delicious, I was pretty envious of my friends who had birthday cakes in the shapes of butterflies or trains or dinosaurs or whatever. So I think my dream birthday cake would be something like your mint chocolate chip cake in the shape of a T-Rex, slathered in that gorgeous green minty icing, and maybe accompanied by macarons in the shape of dinosaur eggs!

My dream birthday cake would be a four-layer mud cake. There'd be one strawberry mud cake layer (does that even exist?! I hope so!), a vanilla/white chocolate mud cake, a caramel mud cake, and a chocolate mud cake. I don't know if it would even work with the weight of the cakes, but it would be awesome if it did!

Your blog and Linda's inspire me so very much! I think your Caramel mud cake with salted caramel and pear would be pretty darn ideal! Or maybe a vanilla and cherry type of situation but then again your vanilla cake with rhubarb and strawberry that I made for my Mr 6's birthday was pretty darn sensational!

Thanks for such an inspiring blog; you are extremely talented!My dream birthday cake would be an Eiffel tower made of stacked macaroons (dont know if thats even possible!), as I love Paris and everything French ;-)

My dream birthday cake is a classic yellow cake with an whipped cream and toasted almond filling (four thin layers!) and a dark chocolate icing. this cake I just make for myself!~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~margueritecore [at] gmail [dot] com

After much deliberation, my dream birthday cake would be a three layer vanilla sponge cake, sandwiched with raspberry and white chocolate whipped filling, iced with almond white chocolate icing, and decorated with white chocolate shards around the edge and fresh raspberries and sugared almond flakes on top. I love Call Me Cupcake and have been so excited for this book! Now I'm craving this cake :/ may have to fix that tomorrow :) meagan.and.horses@hotmail.com

My dream birthday cake would be any cake not made by me. With 3 little ones the only cakes I see are Dora, Peppa Pig and Fireman Sam cakes. What I'd really love is a decadent red velvet on the inside and dark chocolate on the outside cake.

I would love a rich chocolate cheesecake with a pretzel crust drizzled with salted caramel and served with whipped vanilla bean cream. My current go to birthday cake is the Lindt Cafe chocolate cheescake, but i haven't found a good chocolate one from any bloggers to try yet! (hint hint)cheesefred@hotmail.com

PS: I love you recipes, I made that Honeycomb Crunch icing of yours for my boyfriend's 30th cake, went down a treat! :D

My dream birthday cake would be the one I always wanted as a kid but never got - the lolly stand from the Women's Weekly Birthday Cake Book. I'd go for a lemon coconut cake with a citrus cream cheese icing and my lolly favourites would be bounty, cherry ripe and some maltesers for good measure!e.danieletto@gmail.com

My dream birthday cake would be one baked for me by someone I love. I have a reputation as a good baker so people hardly ever bake for me.

If I could pick what they would bake for me, - it would be seasonally inspired (my birthday is coming up in late November) it would be a multi-layed bake with alternating layers of soft orange flecked sponge and crunchy meringue interlaced with vanilla whipped cream and lashings of fresh raspberries.

Ideally it would be presented with a bunch of peonies, my favourite flowers which are only in season for a brief window around my birthday.

oh so hard to pick just ONE ! hmmm... anything w/ too much chocolate icing, rich, and moist w/ fresh raspberries on top ! served w/ fresh whipped cream on the side and a cup of tea please ! ...okay can't wait for a birthday now !*drools* yum ! assieass@hotmail.com

I think my dream birthday cake would be the ridiculous looking Celebration Cake that Jamie Oliver made on Comfort Food recently, but with some kind of raspberry element involved. My niece keeps asking me if we can make the Celebration Cake together, but I have a feeling the whole thing would collapse in a heap the second I tried to cut it! melbourneonmymind[at]gmail[dot]com

My dream birthday cake would be a meter high rainbow cake! It would be a rainbow stacked cake and have like 15 colours. The icing in the middle would vary between the layers with some having crushed up fruit tingles in it, coconut and strawberry and raspberry swirl. There would be a white icing as the base for the royal rainbow icing that is dripping down the sides of the cake. It would look awesome!

My Mum once made me the most awesome birthday cake ever - it was a layer cake with hazelnut meringue on the bottom, vanilla ice-cream in the middle into which she mixed homemade toffee, with another layer of hazelnut meringue and topped with raspberries and this awesome chocolate sauce. It was soo awesome and it looked amazing as well!! This is forever my dream birthday cake!!

I made my dream cake for my 21st birthday 3 years ago now. It was a simple white chocolate mud cake, covered in white fondant and i made coral, pink and white floral decorations and had them falling off the cake. It looked like i had bought it, i was so proud of myself, and keeping aiming for more each time i back! amandaxoxjayne@hotmail.com

My dream birthday cake would be a peanut butter BANANA & jelly layer cake with ginger cookies crumbs & chocolate fudge ganache thrown in for good measure (which I may just make for my birthday this week!!) - jess (jessphillips90@gmail.com)

If I could have a morsel of what my heart most desired on my birthday it would be some concoction including peanut butter, chocolate and banana. Perhaps a layered banana cake with alternating layers of rich chocolate buttercream and peanut butter buttercream and then topped with peaks of whipped cream, chocolate shavings, banana slices and a few salted peanuts.

Easy! My dream birthday cake would be my nanna's lemon sponge with lemon icing. It was so simple, fragrant and delicious but sadly no-one got the recipe before she passed away (a long time ago might I add). Yummy memories!!

My dream cakes have always involved ice cream. So for my 30th i had the amazing dr evil mushroom from messina.. now that i have had that. All i want to do is create my owncolorful, buttery cakes with the tastiest icing around.... maggiedingwall@hotmail.com

Love Call Me Cupcake, photography goals for sure. Love how a baking blog can be so dark and gothic. My ideal birthday cake is one I have been trying to turn from concept into practice for a while now, a cake based on Summer Rolls, the nougat/chocolate/coconut bars that my mum and father-in-law love. Has to be in cylinder form, and have nougat pieces incorporated in there somewhere :) henml006@mymail.unisa.edu.au

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